One would think the hardest part of getting one’s first novel published would be, you know, writing the thing to start with or tackling the incredibly long odds of finding someone willing to publish it.

Not so in the case of Brian Ray, who will launch his first novel, Through the Pale Door, today (Wednesday, June 24) at ifART Gallery at 1223 Lincoln St. from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

The hardest part for Ray? Picking a title.

 

“The one I had the publisher didn’t like,” says Ray, who is the winner of the First Novel Prize, awarded by the South Carolina Arts Commission and who currently is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Ray previously earned an M.F.A. from the University of South Carolina. “It was called Woman With Her Throat Cut, and the publishers thought that sounded too much like a slasher movie, and I didn’t have a problem with that.

“But then finding something else proved very difficult. We went through five or six different ones before we settled on Inside-Out Girl. But then once we were all set to go with that one, we found out there was another book coming out already with that title. Finally we got one we all liked.”

Taking an unusual tack for a first-time novelist, Ray chose to write from a woman’s perspective as the main character is a teenager who is working at a steel mill after her senior year of high school before she goes off to college. In that sense, it’s a coming-of-age tale set against a backdrop Ray has a lot of familiarity with.

“I’ve always like the coming-of-age plotline structure,” Ray says. “It’s very natural, and I drew on a lot of my own experiences working in a mill; I did a lot of different jobs when I was younger, some of which were pretty dangerous.”

As dangerous as taking on a female first-person narrative voice?

“Probably,” Ray says with a laugh. “I like what Chuck Palahniuk has done using the female voice as well as some other authors and wanted to try my hand at it. It was a good way to distance myself.

“It was a challenge and took a lot of drafting, but what helped was that I stayed with the character and the story. As in, I didn’t think to myself, ‘What would a woman feel here?’ but ‘What would this character feel?’ That helped a lot, as well as feedback from writer’s groups and my girlfriend at the time.”

Ray had entered the First Novel Prize before and felt good about his chances only to come up short. That’s why this time around, Ray was more than a bit stunned to learn he’d won.

“Rather than be confident I’d win, I was happy that I knew I’d given the manuscript 100 percent and had done everything I possibly could to make it as good as I could,” Ray says. “I remember the call came at the end of a semester and I was exhausted and woke up really late and saw that I had a message on the phone from the arts commission.

“After five or six times trying to reach them I got through, and when the woman said I’d won, I was just shell-shocked, kind of paralyzed, and I remember thinking I should act surprised and excited but I was just so stunned thinking how this was going change my life for the next year.”

That call came last May, final revisions were made by Thanksgiving and the book now is ready to launch this week. Besides his appearance at ifArt today, Ray also will speak tomorrow (Thursday, June 25) at the South Carolina State Library from noon to 1 p.m. He’ll finish his week with a book signing and reading at the Forest Drive Barnes & Noble from 2 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 27. 

Let us know what you think. Email rona@free-times.com.